BPL – Not dead but dying

When I read what follows at Southgate ARC news I just wanted to yell “Hurray!” I am sure the Manassas radio amateurs will want to join me and breath a big sigh of relief.

Manassas VA to pull the plug on BPL

The Manassas City Council is saying goodbye to BPL.

Inside Northern Virginia reports that the council is in the process of deciding whether to abandon its broadband over power line project now, or to let it die at the end of the city’s fiscal year.
BPL was Manassas’ attempt to bring the Internet into the homes of every resident by providing a low-cost broadband service. Subscribers were told that they could access the Internet through the regular electrical outlets, but for a number of reasons it never caught on with the public.

First, the connection proved to be slower than cable or DSL. It was expensive to maintain and caused massive reception interference to those using the spectrum it shared. This included the Manassas ham radio community which was highly vocal in its opposition.

The end result was that the project only garnered about 670 subscribers while costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in ongoing maintenance. It also faced a strong challenge from Comcast cable which claims the potential to serve the entire city, and Verizon which has rapidly been expanding its FIOS service in the Manassas area.

And now like a bad dream it will shortly be fading away.

This is what we have been longing to hear and I am hopefully this is the first in a long line of similar stories that will chronicle the death throws of this spawn of Satan that is BPL.